Bess wriggles to one side. Ruth slides the baby into her bouncy chair and gives her the bottle. Chubby little hands grasp the milk and the baby gulps through sighs of satisfaction, eyes following Ruth with a knowing luminosity; a barometer on reality, more sane than the adult in the room.
Ruth smooths her daughter’s damp hair and with her other hand she scrolls through her phone contacts to Giles’s number. She practises what to say: ‘I went out without you knowing and got caught up in something that might be dangerous.’ Or: ‘Will you help me untangle my most vivid hallucination and still trust me to look after our daughter?’ The words sit on her tongue, poised to roll out to the ether and into Giles’s ear, where he’ll use them to calculate the fastest way to get her back to the mother-and-baby unit. Ruth lays her phone face down.
On the dining table is an envelope Giles left earlier, his handwriting scribbled on the front: ‘Don’t forget to take.’ Inside is her antidepressant. This is how he leaves the medication now he’s spending time away from the house. He used to at least sweeten the command by planting a kiss on her forehead, or console her with a joke – ‘you’re my favourite patient’ – but in only a few days the message has become perfunctory, another chore inspired by his wife’s difficulties. In an hour or two he’ll be home. After that Ruth won’t be able to leave the house and the question of the girl will stretch into another day. And if the snow thickens and Giles can’t get to work again tomorrow, a young person will be trapped and hungry, waiting for Ruth, the only one who can help.
No wonder Frieda didn’t want Liam in her house and the curtains have been drawn for several days against prying eyes. Even though Ruth’s mystified about what she should do, she’s also strangely honoured at having been the one tasked with looking after Leila – no one else has trusted Ruth with much for months. And she feels wretched for Frieda too, that the little boy Ruth saw in a photograph just minutes ago has grown into such an ogre that his mother is certain of the unkindness he’d show the girl she’s harbouring in her house. Perhaps, if food is all that Leila needs, Ruth can manage that until Frieda comes out of hospital – if she comes out of hospital. Only one thing’s for sure: Ruth is stronger, physically at least, than whatever is next door.
She swallows her tablet and grabs a plastic bag, putting in bread and a few old cans of food. Some cheese, milk and butter from the fridge, not enough to empty the shelves, and she avoids the pâté and ripe cheese Giles loves and would know were missing in an instant. With Bess in her arms, Ruth puts a blanket round the little girl and leaves from the front, her back door now swollen shut with damp. She takes the alley to the rear of Frieda’s house, opening the door there as she would a gate to a bull, holding Bess away from the opening as Leila rushes forward. Ruth takes two rapid steps backwards into the yard, putting up a hand to a bewildered Leila, who daren’t move into the garden where she might be seen. Bess blinks, tucking her head into her mum’s neck, then peeps out, fingers scrunching Ruth’s jumper. Ruth looks between the two girls. There’s a sweaty caution in her baby’s breath. Leila’s face is shadowed in the doorway, but her eyes are fixed on the baby. Bess curls further into shyness, keeping this new person at the edge of her vision.
The baby is fresh to the world, so closed to suggestion it would be impossible for her to pretend or disguise her reaction. Ruth points at Leila, saying, ‘Who’s that?’ Bess smiles and kicks her legs, like a rider on a pony. She wants to be closer. Ruth takes tentative steps towards the house and, as they come level with Leila, Bess stretches out an arm and the young woman on the doorstep touches her own fingers to the little girl’s. Bess giggles excitedly into her mum’s neck, strangely warmed by this stranger, and the radiance that breaks on Leila’s face at once tells Ruth that Leila is no threat to her or her daughter. Nor an illusion. Now Ruth’s sure, she realizes she never really believed otherwise, it was only her crushing self-doubt that refused to let her listen to good sense. With this answer, though, has come a different set of problems, ones that belong to a hidden and desperate young woman.
Ruth steps inside to the fruity kick of hot, unaired rooms. Leila’s face is wide with anticipation and fear, a question balanced on her barely open mouth. She’ll want to know if Ruth has told.
Ruth closes the door behind her and gives Leila the bag of food. ‘You’re safe, don’t worry.’
The carrier shakes as Leila opens it to look inside. ‘Thank you.’
‘It’s not much, but it should last a couple of days.’
The girl swerves past Ruth towards the kitchen, hurriedly opening one of the cans and spreading butter on bread.
Ruth’s redundant hand pats her daughter’s back, and Bess’s head turns left and right to explore this new environment. The stark lighting is accentuated by the many mirrors and a green hue refracts from an infinity of plants. Ruth puts a hand to the curtain at the back window to let in some daylight, when Leila shouts, ‘No.’ Ruth freezes, turns. The girl says, more quietly, ‘It is enough that you come. If anything else is different, they will see.’
‘Who? Frieda’s son? Has he been here today?’
‘No one has been.’
‘Who then?’
The girl mumbles. ‘From the car wash.’
Ruth tightens her arm round Bess. ‘Are they looking for you?’ She imagines the road blocked by the small army that circled the manhole, vengeance for the scene she caused on the forecourt.
Leila brings a plate of food into the lounge and sits at the coffee table, hunched over bread and cold beans, attacking them with her cutlery. Ruth perches opposite in an armchair.
Leila says through a full mouth, ‘If they knew I was here, they would come.’
‘Why?’
She swallows. ‘Because I would not do what they wanted.’
Ruth shuffles her words, trying to find the best way to ask even though she already knows the answer. ‘And what was that?’
The girl sits tall, rigid. Ruth is pinned to her chair, cursing herself for having asked the obvious and putting this girl through further humiliation. Leila says, ‘I am for sale.’
Ruth gulps, can’t muster a suitable reply, and chooses, ‘I see,’ the phrase overly formal, but it’s all she has at her disposal to keep the fear from her voice. ‘And you wanted to stop?’
Leila shovels in more food. ‘Of course.’
‘Were you working on this street?’
‘No, there is a flat with other women. But when we arrive in this country, we come here.’
‘Why?’
Her fork wavers above the plate. ‘Because of the police, of immigration. We have to hide.’
‘Do you stay at the petrol station?’
‘No.’ Leila blinks fast. ‘We go under the ground.’
A prickle runs across Ruth’s scalp. ‘I saw people, at night. They were climbing out of a petrol tank.’
‘No one will look there.’ The girl mashes what’s left of the beans. ‘They keep us inside until it is safe, then they take us to work.’
‘But the police said it’s not possible. They said the tanks were full of water.’
‘They are wrong.’
‘How, I don’t understand?’
‘Maybe they lie. I do not know.’ She looks at the floor. ‘After we come out, no one talks, we are happy only for fresh air.’
‘How long did you stay down there?’
‘Some hours, maybe a day. We have no light, no place for toilet, we cannot even stand.’ Her knife clatters to the ground. ‘It is like death.’
Ruth leans closer to Leila. ‘Is that where you escaped from? From the tank?’
‘Ray tried to make me go down again, but I ran.’
‘Ray?’
‘The man who keeps us.’ She picks up the knife and jabs it into her food. Ruth strains to hear Leila’s whisper. ‘They separate me from my sister because we help each other, we plan to run away. I did not know where they took her, so I fight for Ray to tell me, but he would not. I am angry all the time, make
it difficult to work, so no one will pay for me.’
The air closes in on Ruth, her altitude dropping.
‘Ray wants to put me under the ground to punish me, to break me, like an animal. He thinks it will make me do what he wants, work better, but I only want to find my sister. I scream and run when he tried to put me there.’
‘Jesus.’
Bess smiles at Leila, who reaches over to stroke the little girl’s cheek. ‘My sister was like my baby. I try to protect her, I promise I would look after her.’
Ruth puts her daughter on the floor between them and crosses to sit next to Leila. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘I do not know how to find her. My only chance is here, outside, but there is no one to help.’
‘What’s the address of the flat where you worked?’
‘We were always locked inside. I never see the street. Once I asked one of men who pay to help, but he was scared of the police. He had a wife and children, he did not want them to find out.’ Leila loses her focus to the curtained window in the distance. ‘My sister and me had school once, I learnt science and English, a good home too. My parents had money, but they use everything to help me and Farah leave, to keep us safe.’ A deep intake of breath. ‘But the men trick us. We pay all the way from leaving home. Is a long way, sometimes in a car, or walking, sometimes hiding. Soon after, the boat is dangerous. Maybe on purpose it sinks so the lifeguards will come, but no one did. They are not allowed to help any more.’ Her head drops. ‘Is lucky we can swim because the life jackets are bad. I saw people under the water.’ Bess stares quietly at Leila as if she too has sensed the intensity of the girl’s story. Leila’s shoulders heave, then she looks up at Ruth, speaking soft and fast. ‘When we try for the tunnel our money has run out, so we have to work to pay back, and now the men never let us stop.’ Panic swells in the girl’s tears. ‘My sister only wanted to go home. I have to find her, she won’t be safe without me. She will think I have left her. I have been in this house one week. Is too long doing nothing, without helping.’
‘Do you have any idea where they’ve taken her?’
Leila shakes her head. ‘Another flat to work, maybe? But I do not know where.’
Ruth gently puts a hand to the girl’s back. ‘Have you spoken to the police?’
Leila pulls away from Ruth. ‘No, no police. They are bad.’
‘They’re not. Really, they can help you.’
The girl tips her head back to make more distance between them. ‘Maybe they help you, but for me it would be different.’
Ruth shifts about in her seat, tugging her too-hot jumper, unable to find a comfortable position, aware she doesn’t fully believe what she’s saying, nor understand the ramifications of getting the police involved for Leila. ‘I’m sure they’d listen if you told them your story. I mean, your sister is missing.’
Leila’s breath is sweet from the food. ‘But I am illegal. They will arrest me. I will go to detention centre, then I will never find Farah.’
‘Can you call someone at home? Your mum or dad? A friend?’
‘There is no one left. Everything is gone.’
‘But where are you from?’
Leila jerks her chin at Ruth. ‘What is the difference? You will only help people like you? Same money, same skin?’
‘Of course not.’ Bess is trying to push herself onto her knees, and the effort of holding up her head is tiring. She looks to her mum with a cry. Ruth lifts the little girl into her arms and hugs her close. The baby’s features are a template of her adult self: almond-shaped eyes, full mouth, dot of a nose. Ruth and Giles had no conscious design over where Bess was born, it was simply chance that they had been born in this corner of the world and could offer that same safety to their child, but if that advantage was taken away, who would Bess be able to trust, who would value her like their own child if Ruth and Giles weren’t around?
‘What if you paid the men what they say you owe?’ Ruth asks. ‘How much do you need, for you and your sister? I don’t know if it’s possible, but maybe I can get some cash.’
Leila sinks back, gravity pulling her into the cushions. ‘You do not understand. The men say they want money but really they only want more work.’
Sweat glows on the girl’s face and her hair is shiny with grease. Ruth hot-wires back to her teenage self: the bitten nails, refusing to wash, a limbo of questions over Tam, uncertainty whipping up anger, tipping Ruth over the edge; and her parents, too exhausted by their own grief to know how to handle this new assault, choosing to lose both daughters rather than cope with the defective one, the one they believed was to blame for leaving Tam in danger. Ruth remembers them pacing the shoreline the day Tam went missing, spitting anger – ‘Why didn’t you tell us sooner? How could you be so wicked?’ – as the lifeguard went back into the waves one more time, even though it was getting dark and he was weeping with exhaustion and only really a boy himself. Ruth’s startled by her uninvited tears in the face of Leila’s desperation, and she covers her face with a hand. She’s not cried this hard in years.
Leila takes Ruth in, probably thinking the tears are for her, which they are, but also for so much more. Then the girl says, ‘Where can I go, what can I do? I have no passport, no friends. My English is not enough, so everyone will know I am not from here.’ She leans away. ‘But maybe,’ her words gather speed, ‘maybe the men will listen to you? You are a citizen. Ray cannot hurt you.’
Through sniffs, Ruth says, ‘Ray?’ She thinks for a moment. ‘I mean, what could I do? I don’t think . . .’ She stands, collects Bess in her arms. Voices outside, car doors slamming, people coming home from work. Ruth checks the clock in the kitchen. ‘God, I have to go.’ Her teeth chatter as she shuffles her guilt from one foot to the other, eyes on the door that’s only feet away, though it may as well be a mile. ‘I’ll come back tomorrow, OK? I can bring more food.’
Leila stares at the floor, her body so thin she’s almost translucent in this light-filled room, armed with no other weapon than a safe place to stay; rootless and powerless, all for the want of a better life. ‘Then I have to go back to work, for Farah. Is the only way.’
Ruth hoists Bess higher on her hip and moves to the back door. ‘Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize how late it was. We’ll talk about this again tomorrow.’
‘My sister is fifteen.’
Pins and needles travel up Ruth’s arm and her fingers cramp on the latch, the effort to leave counterintuitive to the pull of this girl who has only Ruth to help.
Leila says, ‘My baby sister.’
Options fly at Ruth: all the things she needs to do, and everything she mustn’t. She palms the door to steady herself against a sway under her feet. That day at the beach, she and Tam so far from the shore that they were beyond the surf, watching the people-coloured dots against a band of yellow shingle. ‘How long do you think before anyone notices we’re gone?’ Tam had said as Ruth paddled the deep black water, imagining the forest of seaweed below that could wrap round her legs and drag her under. ‘I’m really tired,’ Ruth said through salty coughs. ‘They’ll be worried. Please, Tam, come on. I want to go back.’ Tam, the stronger swimmer by far, glided close to Ruth. ‘You’re such a goodie two shoes, Ruthie.’ Then she dived under the surface and bobbed up like a beautiful mermaid. ‘You go back if you want to, but promise me you won’t tell Mum and Dad where I am. They never stop fussing over me.’
Ruth lets her hand fall from the door and faces Leila. ‘I’m going to have to speak to my husband.’
‘Do not tell him. Please, I beg you.’ Leila smudges the tears from her cheeks, shutting away the vulnerable child she’d briefly allowed herself to become.
‘Why?’
‘Because Mrs Frieda said only to trust you. If he comes, I will run.’
‘But . . .’ Ruth turns her face to Bess so Leila can’t read the treachery she’s considering.
‘I will watch for you.’ Leila’s knuckles are bloodless on the couch, holding on as
if the whole thing might go under. ‘I will disappear if you bring him.’
Ruth recognizes every atom of Leila’s fear as if it were her own. Bess is nearly seven months old, and in that time Ruth’s world has flipped from magnetic north to south – there’s not a single part of her old self she recognizes any more. All Ruth ever needed was one good person, without their judgement.
‘OK,’ Ruth says. ‘I won’t tell.’
Leila nods, a contract blazing on her face. Ruth nods back, though she has no idea to what she’s agreeing.
She opens the door. Cold air streams into the house. She skids on the icy path, grabbing the fence to steady herself. ‘Shit,’ she mumbles. ‘Bloody shit.’ I’m the one who can’t be trusted, I’m the one who’s dangerous. Chaos is a place Ruth once inhabited, bedding in with the worst of the dirt, and now she’s inviting it in again. Giles wants to protect their baby, and if he knew about this girl, or whatever it is Ruth’s about to get involved in, it would be the final straw.
Dusk is moving in as she crosses the alley towards her house. She rehearses what she’ll tell Giles about her afternoon, picking out trivialities at odds with the enormity of the truth. On the railway sidings, saplings lean in the wind, and through the trees she sees a small gathering of figures in a clearing. Their footprints have broken the pristine surface of the snow.
13
By the time Ruth and Giles have finished eating and putting Bess to bed, it’s time to turn in themselves. On the other side of the alley, condensation from Frieda’s boiler has formed a tear shape on the exterior wall. At least Leila will be warm. At least she has some food.
In bed, Ruth can’t settle; questions and anxiety churn up her thoughts until about 3 a.m. when she thinks she hears Bess. She climbs from her sweat-damp sheets only to find her baby is fast asleep. Ruth grinds her jaw, frustrated by the false alarm, grateful, though, that she’s alert to any comings or goings next door, because who else knows to be on guard? In her own room, she pulls the curtain aside as her fox skulks along the road, tail and nose to the ground, as if he’s been told off. Again Ruth forgot to put out food, the Leila-sized problem occupying all her time and energy. She hopes the animal will find an easy bin to raid.
The Hidden Girls Page 18